Thursday 5 February 2015

January 2015: Income & Expenses

Savings rate of 25.7%
    The month of January has most certainly come to an end, and I was very happy to recently post about my new dividend record! That record helped to keep my income for the month up and my savings rate as well, those dividends equaled 5.1% of my income for the month! Its pretty amazing to see the progress that my modest portfolio has begun. With $53.94 more in dividends than last year, I am eager to see it continuing to grow and pump out the dividends.

   I am also very happy with myself on keeping expenses down quite a bit this month, especially compared to Decembers heavy spending.



Income
$
Work
1250.49
Other
136.02
Dividends
75.17
Total
1461.68

    Overall income this month was slightly below my 2014 average, although not by much. Income from actually working this month was pretty light, but I used my free time to see family, friends, relax and do some extra effort in job hunting; which are all things I value quite a bit more than slogging it out at a near minimum wage job! My Other income this month was quite good as the share of tips was high from extra tips during the Christmas time that got paid out, as well as I included a small tax rebate of $78 into that category.

    That brings to question on how I will record my upcoming tax rebate in the next month or so. I will probably record it as income in that month, but do savings rate calculations both with and without it; similar to how I included and excluded my trips expense in the December post. For my last years incomes, I did not included any of my tax rebates in the income category so by including it this year the data will be a bit inflated against the 2014 information. But I guess I got to start somewhere on that front, especially since eventually a tax expense will need to be amortized in.         


Expenses
$
Rent
750
Phone
27
Travel
44.9
Groceries
119.82
Restaurants
33.45
Entertainment
61.25
Other
49.95
Total
1086.37
   
    As I mentioned, expenses were pretty 'great' this month at $1086.37. Particularly my Travel, Restaurants, Entertainment and Other categories were nicely low; although there is some room for improvement. Groceries were a bit higher than I'd like for January but there were some pretty good sales on meat so the freezer is now nice and full! So hopefully those extra buys will reflect in a lower February grocery cost. The Other expenses this month are very avoidable as they consisted of printer ink and a haircut :)

    Overall, a good month. I'd have liked to have made more this month, but certainly can't complain too much about have more free time of my own and dividends pulling 5% of that income. With overall income of $1462, and total expenses of $1086, my savings rate was 25.7% for January, which is much nicer than last months -90%!! So a good start for the year, but short of my 2015 goal of reaching a 40% savings rate. Luckily, there is still 11 months to go!

4 comments:

  1. Happy to see a human among us. A 25% savings rate seems very reasonable. I know many in this community feel distress when they don;t hit 50% and some feel like failures when they save 60% or more. You are doing just fine at that rate. Decent dividend income too for a month that traditionally is not a big payer. Keep up the good work and look forward to your next update.

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    1. Haha thanks :) Considering the general national averages for Canada/US is below 10%.... Being able to achieve 25% on near min wage is pretty good and didnt really take much effort on my part. Spent a bit more than I had to, to be sure but you need to enjoy life a bit as well! And dividends did attribute 5% to that savings rate alone as well! Wooo!

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  2. Setting higher goals from a year to another is surely one of my favorite thing to do. However, the are times in which we need to enjoy life a little. I won't blame you for that! ;-) I'm working very hard this year because I'm planning a year long trip in an RV with my wife and three kids. I need to be financially independent by then... That's when I'll have plenty of time to do what I like.

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    1. Yeah, I enjoyed making them as well. Hopefully they will be attainable by the end of the year, or at least progress towards getting there by early in the next year :) Sounds like an awesome trip! Im guessing your RV is a fairly comfy one to house all of you for a full year! Taking some tents as well perhaps for extra sleeping room? Best of luck getting free!

      Thanks for stopping by, looking forward to reading more posts from you as well!

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